Adobe announce a new subscription option

For years premium design and development software has been the exclusive preserve of Adobe. Since they outmaneuvered Quark and purchased Macromedia, few tools have been able to compete with their products.

However, for all the market dominance of tools like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, Adobe’s recent shift to a subscription model has infuriated many loyal customers. Worryingly for the executives at Adobe, this anger has manifested itself in a search for alternate applications — despite the fact that it’s the subscription model used by many of these alternatives, that largely drove Adobe’s own business model change.

Today, Adobe have announced a new Creative Cloud subscription option that will allow teams to purchase membership of a single CC application for a single user. So, if you have a team of artworkers using Photoshop CC, you won’t need license Dreamweaver CC as well.

The new single app plan is being introduced alongside the existing team plan that provides access to the full suite. A single app plan is available for $29.99 per user, per month. That compares to $69.99 per user, per month for the existing all-inclusive license. Pre-orders are available now, with full availability beginning in the middle of August.

Based on Adobe’s previous 18-month release schedule, the new plan is approximately the same price as an upgrade license for any of the Creative Suite applications. Better news is that existing customers with licenses for CS3 or later are eligible for a reduced price of $19.99 per user, per month.

Included in the price are 20Gb of cloud storage allowing staff to easily collaborate on files. Also included is membership of Behance ProSite, although it’s debatable how useful teams will find that service.

The market for this new subscription is very definitely companies with large teams, especially with staff who spend all day in a single application, but are too small to qualify for enterprise pricing. For those companies the potential savings are clearly substantial.

The good news for smaller agencies and freelancers is that Adobe are listening to community feedback, and are actively looking for ways to make their new subscription model more palatable for everyone in the industry.

Are you a Creative Cloud subscriber? What changes do Adobe need to make in order to retain your business? Let us know in the comments.

Ben Moss

Ben Moss has designed and coded work for award-winning startups, and global names including IBM, UBS, and the FBI. When he’s not in front of a screen he’s probably out trail-running.